Our Father, who art in Heaven

Today I listened to a sermon given by Mark Driscoll titled: "Pray Like Jesus: The Lord's Prayer".



Here is an excerpt from the sermon that stuck out to me:

Jesus taught us to pray to God as Father. 

Now the reason some of you are gonna struggle with this is because of your dad. Okay? Last week after I preached on praying to God as Father, after every service I was praying for people. And I had multiple people, particularly young women in their late teens and twenties saying, “I have a really hard time understanding God as Father. My dad left. He abused. He abandoned. He raped. He beat. He divorced my mom. He walked out on us. He won’t return my phone calls. He won’t have any contact with me. He’s just a horrible man.” What I would say is this, do not judge God by your earthly father, judge your earthly father by your Heavenly Father.

 With every terrible attribute Pastor Driscoll listed about bad fathers, I grew more and more thankful and aware of how wonderful of a father God has blessed me with in my dad. He hasn't left. He hasn't abused. He will never abandon. He will never rape. He is faithful to my mom. He will never leave his family. He calls me back. He's a good man. And because of this, my relationship with my Heavenly Father is good.

Lord, thank you for my dad. Thank you for being my Heavenly Father who loves me and listens to me.